The Netanyahu government, miffed that it was kept out of the loop, has rejected the Obama administration's request made to it and governments around the world to express support for the new U.S. Cuba policy. Canada and the Vatican were the intermediaries and there are no indications any other country was involved.

Mahmoud Abbas' latest threat is that if the U.N. Security Council doesn't approve his resolution calling for recognition of the state of Palestine within the 1967 borders and order full Israeli withdrawal by the end of 2017, his Palestinian Authority with "no longer deal" with Israel.

"Hag sameach." Those were the first words of the newly freed Alan Gross at his Washington press conference Wednesday afternoon.

After five years in a Cuban prison for trying to smuggle Internet equipment to the communist country's tiny Jewish community, he was freed as part of a dramatic change in relations between Havana and Washington..

Gross gave special thanks to the Greater Washington Jewish Community Relations Council and its executive director, Ron Halber, for their ongoing campaign for his freedom.

Joe Biden won't be riding the cherry picker to the top of the National Menorah Tuesday afternoon; instead he'll light the a symbolic shames candle from the ground while others will ride up to light the first candle of Hanukah for the 4 p.m. ceremony on the Ellipse behind he White House.